Sophia is an inspiration to all of us because she speaks to all young women who want to live their lives the way that they want to. It also challenges the notion that company founders need to be male, and that workplaces can't be feminist. Society as a whole has a responsibility and role to play in cultivating the next generation of women leaders.

I don't get it. Seriously, I just don't get it. The incredible reviews for La La Land are staggering. What have they seen that I haven't? Oh, before I carry on I have to announce SPOILER ALERT for fear of ruining it for those who haven't seen it - or as I like to call them, the lucky ones.

If Richard Linklater and Jack Kerouac had a lovechild, it would probably look something like Andrea Arnold. The director of Fish Tank and Wasp returns with an unconventional, raw and all-consuming road trip odyssey, American Honey.

Anything centred around cute baby fish and lost parents is going to melt even the coldest of hearts on this exceptionally rainy August. Finding Dory truly is a recipe for waterworks, with the opening scene being pure Pixar magic.

I attended the VIP screening of Lionsgate's latest action thriller, London Has Fallen, last week at London's Ham Yard Hotel. It's taken me a while to do a write-up because I have mixed feelings about the film. On the surface, it's a great action film with incredible special effects, spectacular stunts and a great cast, but there were also moments which made me feel a little uncomfortable.

While Room has the makings of a terrifyingly real horror story or psychological thriller, director Lenny Abrahamson refuses to diminish or cheapen Donoghue's life-affirming story with gimmicks or horror-movie-frights, and instead creates a heart-breaking, and paradoxically heart-warming, masterpiece of cinema which tells a story of human spirit, hope and the incomparable love between a mother and her child.

Sherpa aptly captures the increasingly acrimonious tension between foreign climbers and their guides while highlighting the codependence between the two parties and awing the eyes with stunning cinematography featuring the world's most majestic mountains as a backdrop.

We're bang in the middle of summer, so it might not seem quite right to suggest staying in and watching a movie. It is lovely and warm outside after all... BUT! it's also the season for romance, that, we can't deny...

Not everyone's going to appreciate the joke though. As I left the venue, two fellows who had attended the same screening stood in the doorway discussing what they had just witnessed. "Pointless. No humour in it," said one to the immediate approval of the other as I squeezed by thinking about how badly my sides hurt from laughing so hard.

The truth is, Pacino can't really hold a note, but it scarcely matters. He's as mesmerising now as when he made his screen debut more than 40 years ago. And while in many of his films he shone brighter than many of the cast, here there is a level playing field thanks to the presence of Plummer and the ever brilliant Annette Bening.

San Andreas might be the stupidest film I've ever seen.... a new breed of stupid. It's not low-budget slapdash stupid. It's not aimed-at-children stupid. It's not silly knockabout action-star totally-fun stupid. It's stupid-stupid. The things that happen in it, the things people say, everything is done without a shred of intelligence, sophistication or even care.

I was clearly never cut out to be a critic, but I'm fascinated by the process even to this day. In particular, I'm interested in what makes their opinions 'different' from those public ones to which the internet has given a voice.

Today marks the release of the next chapter in the Divergent franchise. I have no shame admitting I'm a fan of Veronica Roth's trilogy. Sure, it's aimed at a slightly younger demographic, but the unusual concept and exciting plot twists make the books real page-turners.

This Disney epic was shot on a relatively modest budget ($50m); a Sondheim adaptation clearly more risky than their pending version of Cinderella. Sometimes less really is more, and as we all know, you don't need to spend a fortune to make a great movie.

Ridley Scott, in my opinion, had not made a great film in years, so I didn't hold out much hope for his latest, the biblical saga Exodus: Gods and Kings. However, like 2014's Noah, this huge, visionary epic holds together well and is worth a look on the big screen.

So that was 2014, a year when a comedy compromised the free world, when a tree and a raccoon stole millions of hearts, and when Gilliam, Scorsese, Godzilla and Jack Ryan returned to cinemas, but what, you may yawn, was THE film of the past 12 months?

Paddington was a key part of my childhood and 'woe betide anyone who screwed it up', I thought. Thankfully those fears soon melted away within a few minutes of one of the best films of 2014. Getting a movie like this from script to screen is no easy matter, and King, Heyman, the cast and crew have done a magnificent job.

There were some funny and indeed touching moments in "The Rewrite". I really enjoyed the character of student and "Star Wars" fanatic Billy Frazier (Andrew Keenan-Bolger) and Keith Michael's fellow colleagues Dr. Lerner (J.K. Simmons) and Mary Waldon (Allison Janney).

Gone Girl may be based on Gillian Flynn's best selling novel, but there's no shadow of a doubt who directed it. Though his opening titles are usually the standout moments of most of David Fincher's films, here each credit is so brief it barely registers.